“HELPME. How can I adopt out my kids?” was the question that came in by text.
The agency’s on-call employee left her own sons’ basketball game and stepped into the gymnasium hallways to gather her thoughts.
“Hi there, what’s got you thinking about adoption?” she typed back.
“Can’t do this anymore, too hard” was the sad response.
It doesn’t happen often, but Abrazo does also handle adoptions for parents voluntarily placing children they’ve been parenting, whether those kids are toddlers, school-age or sibling groups. (Adoption isn’t just for newborn babies, of course.)
These are very special placements that are only done when careful options counseling and preplacement preparation has been completed. Adoption is a permanent solution, so it’s important to ensure that it’s a necessary resort in the best interests of any child/ren involved.
Care must be taken to evaluate all other available resources and educate the parent/s about the long-lasting effects such decisions can have on the entire family system.
Yet the reality is that Abrazo can find loving homes for children of nearly any age or background, provided adoption is truly the right choice for the child and their parent/s or guardian/s.
Voluntary placements through licensed agencies in Texas are safe, legal and confidential.
Questions to Be Considered First
Any agency should take care to counsel the parent/s or guardian/s to consider all other options first, of course. Adoption may or may not be the best alternative, so ethical professionals look into all these kinds of questions first:
What is the child’s understanding of what is going on? What is the child’s other parent’s role in the child’s life? How can they help?
What are the child’s needs, short-term and long-term? What are the parents’ needs, short-term and long-term?
Have other authorities have been involved with these children and these parents? If so, why, and for how long?
Are their other solutions has the parent tried that haven’t worked, and why not? What other relatives are available and may be suitable caretakers, either temporarily or permanently?
What is the parent’s understanding of the grief and loss that may follow placement? Do they have an adequate support system and coping skills to get them through the post-placement period?
These aren’t necessarily the kinds of things desperate parents most want to talk about, when they are at the end of their rope and longing to get their child/ren in someone else’s care. Yet ethical adoption professionals know that helping these moms and dads review all possible options is essential, because any adoption worth doing is worth doing the right way.
How Can I Adopt Out My Kids Safely?
Contacting a licensed, nonprofit adoption agency like Abrazo is your first best step. A counselor will be immediately available to talk with you, and if you’re afraid you or someone else might hurt your kids, the counselor can help arrange intervention right away, to keep everyone safe. Abrazo does have a licensed foster home available to provide emergency care for children who need a place to stay while they’re in the process of being adopted, if they can’t stay in their home for any reason.
The agency will need to contact whomever the parents are who are named on the child/ren’s birth certificate/s, unless there’s a custodial court order naming someone else the child/ren’s parent/s or guardian/s. Sometimes, the people who contact Abrazo are custodial grandparents who simply cannot keep raising their grandchildren or great-grandchildren anymore, and open adoption can be a beautiful option for keeping loving relatives in touch with kids who need to be adopted.
Abrazo provides whomever is considering adoption for their child/ren with confidential counseling before and after placement, and the child/ren also spend time with a licensed psychologist and pediatrician, to assess their needs. The chosen adoptive parents spend nearly a week visiting with the child/ren and their parent/s or guardian/s before legal decisions are made, so that everyone (including the child/ren) has time to adapt and be comfortable with the decision.
After placement, the agency continues to offer support to the child/ren and all the parents, and to supervise the new family up to a year or more, to ensure that everyone is adjusting well.
A New Beginning, for Everyone Involved
Adoption is never, ever an easy choice. People don’t decide to do this on a whim. It’s usually only a last resort when everything else they’ve tried hasn’t worked and they can’t bear to see their child/ren go without the loving and stable home they need and deserve.
Abrazo isn’t the kind of adoption agency that pushes placement as the perfect decision for everyone in every situation. The Abrazo staff goes out of its way to empower those who contact us to make their own best choices, and to put the best interests of the child/ren first in every circumstance.
For mothers who are worried enough about their children’s wellbeing to text “how can I adopt out my kids?” in the midst of a personal storm, Abrazo will always offer a safe harbor and immediate help, whether adoption turns out to be the necessary outcome or not.
